According to interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi, one of the Afghan soldiers spotted the girl wearing a suicide jacket.

But she could not operate the button to detonate the suicide vest or she was arrested before she could carry the attack, the BBC reports.

The girl has now been transferred to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

The Taliban has in the past used child and teenage suicide bombers, but Spozhmay is one of the youngest recorded by the Afghan government and one of the few girls reportedly tasked by the Taliban for suicide attacks.